Historical Mosques in Indonesia and the Malay World - Roots, Transformations, and Developments

The book is an interdisciplinary study on the relationship between Muslims and their mosques in Indonesia and Malaysia. It presents selected historic mosques that demonstrate local interpretations and sociocultural assimilation, as well as a geographical syncretism, of Islam in local societies. The book unveils the contestations, synchronizations, assimilations, and integrations of local and foreign elements into the contextual architecture and sociologically institutionalized system that is the mosque: the Islamic place of worship. The author excavates the mosque's historical origins and traces the iconic elements, features, and designs from their earliest historical settings and contexts. He then identifies, analyzes, and theorizes the outcomes of the interaction between Islam and local traditions through Malaysian and Indonesian case studies. The book proposes that Islam, at its philosophical level, can be culturally acceptable anywhere because it contains universal virtues of humanity for equality, fraternity, and social justice. The book unfolds how a dialectical contestation and acculturation of Dutch colonialism, Middle Eastern elements of culture, and local customs and traditions, might then come into dialogue, peacefully. Finally, the book considers the relationship between Malay and Indonesian architecture within their respective political cultures, shedding light on Islam and its practice within rich multicultural contexts. Relevant to students and researchers in Islamic studies, architecture, and Southeast Asian studies more broadly, the book uncovers the issues, constraints, and opportunities relating to the meaning of mosques for Muslims in Malaysia and Indonesia.



Dr. Bagoes Wiryomartono is an independent scholar in Toronto Canada, focused on the history, theory, and design of urbanism of various cultures and traditions in Southeast Asia and North America. Bagoes earned his Doctorate in architecture and urbanism from the Aachen University of Technology, Germany, in 1990. He was a postdoctoral fellow of architecture at the East-West Centre in Honolulu, Hawaii, and a Fulbright scholar at the Smithsonian Institute in the US. He was a senior lecturer at the Bandung Institute of Technology (1981-3, 1993-2002) in Indonesia and a visiting research associate at the Asian Institute, University of Toronto Canada (2003-5). He was then an associate professor at the Department of Architecture, the Faculty of Built Environment of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (2010 -2013). His most books include Architectural Humanities: In the Search for Knowledge, Ethics, and Aesthetics of the Built Environment and Habitation, Traditions and Transformations of Habitation in Indonesia, and Livability and Sustainability of Urbanism, to name a few.